I have no idea if Trump campaign colluded w Russia. But if they didnt, what else could possibly be worth this amount of hamhanded deception?— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) March 30, 2017
Mar 30, 2017
Today's Tweet
Nunes Is Dirty
It's possible Devin Nunes really thinks he's doing what we pay him to do - and it is possible he actually is doing what we pay him to do, even as he does it in a very unorthodox and troubling way.
It's also possible I can make the jack of spades jump out of a brand new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. (with apologies to Sky Masterson's dad for turning that one around)
NYT:
WASHINGTON — A pair of White House officials played a role in providing Representative Devin Nunes of California, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with the intelligence reports that showed President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.
The revelation that White House officials assisted in the disclosure of the intelligence reports — which Mr. Nunes then discussed with President Trump — is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration while his committee is supposed to be conducting an independent investigation of Russia’s meddling in the last presidential election.
- and -
Several current American officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment.
It's also possible I can make the jack of spades jump out of a brand new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. (with apologies to Sky Masterson's dad for turning that one around)
NYT:
The revelation that White House officials assisted in the disclosure of the intelligence reports — which Mr. Nunes then discussed with President Trump — is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration while his committee is supposed to be conducting an independent investigation of Russia’s meddling in the last presidential election.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment.
It Gets Worse
The Daddy State approacheth.
“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequila.”
--Mitch Ratcliffe
Thanks to last week’s US Senate decision (update March 28: and today’s House decision), ISPs can sell your entire web browsing history to literally anyone without your permission. The only rules that prevented this are all being repealed, and won’t be reinstated any time soon (it would take an act of congress).
ISPs can also sell any information they want from your online activity and mobile app usage — financial information, medical information, your children’s information, your social security number — even the contents of your emails.
They can even sell your geolocation information. That’s right, ISPs can take your exact physical location from minute to minute and sell it to a third party.
You might be wondering: who benefits from repealing these protections? Other than those four monopoly ISPs that control America’s “last mile” of internet cables and cell towers?
No one. No one else benefits in any way. Our privacy — and our nation’s security — have been diminished, just so a few mega-corporations can make a little extra cash.
This looks a whole lot like standard Political Duplicity - privacy snoops disguised as profiteers to give the illusion of separation from Officialdom, so nobody in government is accountable to voters for the inevitable fuckery.
And the bonus is that the ISP cartel can peddle our information to Da Gubmint (aka: the Lunker Customer everybody's always gunnin' for, so you know it'll happen), which will confer upon us the supreme privilege of paying them to fuck us over - again.
Cronies get richer
Congress Critters get re-elected
We get fucked
'Twas ever thus with the Radical Right, and ever thus 'twill be.
Anyway, privacy is pretty much the whole banana in a free state, and there seems to an even fuckier fuckery afoot.
Roe v Wade is based on the concept of a Consitutional Right To Privacy. If this ISP thing stands up to challenge in the courts, kiss that one good-bye. And then it's really open season on everybody's rights across the board.
Now, I realize I'm pretty close to the Slippery Slope Fallacy, but these things happen step-by-step, so I'm just trying to follow it out to the logical extreme. And it's not like we haven't seen some of this shit already. The bullshit SCOTUS ruling on Voting Rights comes to mind.
So how's that Gorsuch appointment looking now?
Mar 29, 2017
Today's Tweet
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over.
This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen pic.twitter.com/EF6Hk3Y3ai— Ali Segel (@OnlineAlison) March 27, 2017
Mar 28, 2017
Color Me Unsurprised
...again.
The Atlantic:
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush raised taxes, and GDP growth increased over the next five years. In 1993, President Bill Clinton raised the top marginal tax rate, and GDP growth increased over the next five years. In 2001 and 2003, President Bush cut taxes, and we faced a disappointing expansion followed by a Great Recession.
Does this story prove that raising taxes helps GDP? No. Does it prove that cutting taxes hurts GDP? No.
But it does suggest that there is a lot more to an economy than taxes, and that slashing taxes is not a guaranteed way to accelerate economic growth.
And there's still that nagging little finding from years ago - repeatedly reaffirmed to reach or exceed the 95% certainty threshold - that for every $1 solely in tax cuts, we get about 59¢ in Net Economic Stimulus and for every $1 solely in direct government spending (eg: infrastructure) we can count on $1.19 in Net Economic Stimulus.
The Atlantic:
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush raised taxes, and GDP growth increased over the next five years. In 1993, President Bill Clinton raised the top marginal tax rate, and GDP growth increased over the next five years. In 2001 and 2003, President Bush cut taxes, and we faced a disappointing expansion followed by a Great Recession.
Does this story prove that raising taxes helps GDP? No. Does it prove that cutting taxes hurts GDP? No.
But it does suggest that there is a lot more to an economy than taxes, and that slashing taxes is not a guaranteed way to accelerate economic growth.
Call me crazy, but if my broker comes to me trying to sell me on the idea that making 60¢ (kinda the same as losing 40¢) is a better deal than making $1.20, I'm gonna bounce that butthead outa my office so fast his feet won't even touch the ground.
Good old-fashioned Keynesian economics - cuz it works, dummy.
Tax policy is an important piece of an economic strategy, but we've let it get out of balance.
Water the roots, not the leaves.
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